OPINION: A climate-wary Coalition is betting on an economic downturn to turn Australians against a policy seen as the return of an economy-wide carbon price.
The Coalition does not plan, at this stage, to launch a substantive campaign against the Labor government’s safeguard mechanism., is a sign of how much climate politics has changed.On Wednesday, the Coalition’s energy spokesman, Ted O’Brien, called the policy a “carbon tax” and “three times as big” as the financial costs imposed by the original Labor version.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison told the United Nations climate conference in Glasgow that scientists and engineers would drive Australia’s path to net zero emissions.In 2011, then Liberal leader Tony Abbott launched a frontal attack on a similar, and more comprehensive carbon scheme proposed by the Gillard Labor government. Abbott called it a “useless, destructive tax”. Voters agreed, and he easily won the following election. The Coalition won two more.
The left is opposed to the new safeguard mechanism because it provides some protections for heavy industry. The $75 maximum price of the new carbon credits, which emitters will have to buy, isn’t especially high. Exporters may get partial exemptions. “Introducing crediting and trading arrangements gets us closer to the kind of cap-and-trade scheme that we know works elsewhere,” independent MP Allegra Spender tweeted Tuesday.
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